Lindy Chamberlain: The Dingo, the Baby, and a Nation's Shock

[EPISODE 44] Lindy Chamberlain: The Dingo, the Baby, and a Nation's Shock

Kyle Risi: And the jury are completely overwhelmed by the evidence that's presented to them. And they don't really understand much of what's been said. And they often mention that They relied on the media reports about the case to explain to them what they were hearing in the court. Because most of Australia felt that the Chamberlains were guilty, and this was the angle that the media were peddling, the jury just felt that they had to come back with a guilty verdict.

Adam Cox: Wow. Because they're being told this is what's happened, and I guess for their perspective, they can't go like, Yeah. We'd look stupid if we go against this.

Kyle Risi: Welcome to The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We're a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic I think you'll find both fascinating and intriguing. Stories from the darker corners of true crime, mind blowing historical events, and legendary people.

Kyle Risi: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. 

Kyle Risi: I'm your host Kyle Risi. 

Adam Cox: And I'm your co host Adam Cox. 

Kyle Risi: Another week! Can you believe it's almost the end of January? We've almost survived the doom and gloom. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, it's always that time of year. not the most exciting time of the year, but we're, we've come to the end of 

Kyle Risi: it.

Kyle Risi: Well, we're actually recording this, uh, what, in, uh, the last day of the year, actually, so So we're just, uh, emulating the, the feeling of the January doom and gloom. 

Adam Cox: Well, okay, you've spoiled it now. As long as it's not an apocalypse that's happened in between now and then. 

Kyle Risi: Well, we still have to, uh, take down the Christmas decorations, unfortunately, which I'm not looking forward to. So welcome to another episode. 

Adam Cox: So Kyle, what have you got in store for us today? 

Kyle Risi: So today's compendium, we're actually diving into an assembly of cautionary tales of why you should always listen when someone says A dingo's got my baby.

Adam Cox: Oh, I know what we're covering today. that quote is was famous almost, isn't it? It is, 

Kyle Risi: it's yeah, I've never really understood what it was all about. Um, I obviously understood the kind of the tragedy behind it. But today's episode is a story that's pretty widely acknowledged as one of the biggest cases in Australian criminal history.

Kyle Risi: And one that is also considered the worst miscarriages of justice. It's a story of a totally innocent mother and father who were put on trial and found guilty of murdering their baby daughter in cold blood. And as a result, they became some of the most famous and most hated people in the world because most people believed that they were lying when they said a dingo had stolen their baby.

Kyle Risi: So in today's episode of The Compendium, I'm going to be telling you about the story of Lindy Chamberlain and the Chamberlain family. So what do you know about this story? 

Adam Cox: I'm excited for this one because it sounds so far fetched, doesn't it? Uh, that, uh, some wild animal has, stolen a baby. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, this is Australia. You are forgetting that. Everything is designed to kill. By 

Adam Cox: design! Yeah, that's true. Fair enough. Maybe it's quite common. I don't know. 

Kyle Risi: Well, we're going to find out today, I mean all Australians will know the story and I think internationally people have come to know this as a story that kind of has attached to it a funny trope, like the dingo stole my baby. But recently, it seems that times are changing and people probably have more access to a lot more information around this case.

Kyle Risi: And I think that maybe people are starting to see the investigation for what it actually is and that was just a complete joke a total miscarriage of justice To the very people that the system was supposed to be serving. 

Adam Cox: Let me guess were the media. 

Kyle Risi: Oh Yes, of course, you know, that's a running theme Yeah, so with like increased access to social media Linda Chamberlain over the years has spoken out more and more particularly talking about just how awful this whole ordeal was for her and her family and the story has gone from something that just felt like this abstract thing that people made fun of but now are realizing Oh shit, like an entire family was completely destroyed by just how badly this case was handled So in light of this it's fair to say that this is another survival story that's embedded within it Lindy went through horrific abuse in what can only be described as a witch hunt resulting from Her wrongful imprisonment.

Kyle Risi: Sorry if that's a spoiler, but yeah, she served time for this. And I hope today's episode will just remind people. There was actually a small child who was brutally killed at the centre of this. But, before we start 

Adam Cox: Should we do all the latest things?

Kyle Risi: I think so.

Kyle Risi: So this is the segment of the show where we catch up on the week's happenings and share a quick tidbit. Breaking news, facts, or just some weird story from the past week. So Adam, what have you got for us today? 

Adam Cox: So my news for this week kind of relates to a story I think you mentioned several months ago, probably now, about that guy that was interviewed on the street and he had a near death experience or he had died and he saw his life flash before him and he felt really calm and happy and he was struggling to be back in the living world again.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Um, well there has been a new study because people have always said like your life flashes before your eyes. and I guess there's been no scientific proof of that until relatively recently. 

Kyle Risi: Oh god, that fills me with fear because I know if my life flashed before my eyes there would just be a lot of sitting.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true actually. so it's a common theory that we see this kind of warm fuzzy light and we're floating off to the afterlife and life flashes before our eyes. And so what happened was a study by neuroscientists recently analysed recordings of a brain of an 87 year old man moments before he died, which led to this discovery.

Adam Cox: The team found that the man had a burst of brain activity during that time before death and a change in the man's alpha and gamma brainwaves. Now these brainwaves are generally involved in the functions of memory recall. And so from that, what they can deduce is that he's definitely having memories or thinking back to something.

Adam Cox: Could this be him, thinking about his life flashing before his eyes as he's dying? And so, um, it's been published in, uh, I think some publications. It's only one person that has been studied, so more needs to be done. But I think it's a strong inclination now, or an idea that maybe this is a reality.

Adam Cox: And so during the 30 seconds recorded, before and after this man's death, his brain actually had an increase in activity, which led them to theorize that the brain continues to work after blood stops flowing to it.

Kyle Risi: Wow, that's incredible. I always think that when you are in your final moments of life and you are having all those images flash before your eyes, that is your body's way of just clearing all kind of your, your browser history. So it's like, thanks for having my back. Thanks, mind. No one needs to see these.

Adam Cox: Yeah, let's just dispose of this discreetly. but yeah, so it's, like I said, there's only one person that's gone through this at the moment, but I'm sure that more neurosurgeons and things like that are going to study this over the next 

Kyle Risi: coming years. Would you be up for that? if you were, like, terminal and you knew you were gonna die?

Adam Cox: I think so. I mean, unless they're going to be able to Somehow see what I'm seeing, that'd be a bit weird. But if they're just like, well they could download that information. 

Kyle Risi: There'd be a lot of cats in their face. There would be a lot of cats, yeah. If they could see all your memories.

Kyle Risi: Best memories are cats. You've always got your face in Keith's belly or something. Yeah, so um, 

Adam Cox: yeah that's my 

Kyle Risi: latest thing. Great, so this week, I've got a couple things actually. So, shellfish. Do you know anyone who's allergic to shellfish? Um, 

Adam Cox: probably, but I can't 

Kyle Risi: think off the top of my head. I only know Ross from Friends.

Kyle Risi: He's allergic to shellfish. And kiwi. 

Adam Cox: Um, okay, so we're talking about like make believe people now. 

Kyle Risi: No, I'm gen I don't know actually anyone who's allergic to shellfish. I know a few people who don't like shellfish, but get this. If you're allergic to shellfish, then you're also likely allergic to cockroaches.

Kyle Risi: And if you're allergic to shellfish and cockroaches, you cannot have pre ground coffee beans because there's a 10 percent contamination of cockroaches in those coffee beans. What? Yes! 

Adam Cox: There's cockroaches in my 

Kyle Risi: coffee? So people who are allergic to shellfish, it's due to an allergy to a protein, and some insects also contain the same protein, And the reason you might have an allergic reaction to pre ground coffee is because it's all processed from these big stockpiles of coffee, which get infested with cockroaches and various other insects.

Kyle Risi: And there's nothing really that anyone can do to filter them out. So they all just get ground up inside this coffee. The actual cockroach. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. And most food and drug authorities have standards which allow coffee beans to contain a percentage of insects ground up within each parcel, and that percentage is upwards of 10 percent depending on where you are in the world. 

Adam Cox: That's ridiculous. So the only safe coffee you can get is from bean to cup. And even then a cockroach may have crawled over one of those beans.

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: You've got to rinse those coffee beans, man. Yeah. But other foods are affected as well. Like what? Chocolate. Yeah. So you've got like cockroaches in your chocolate, man. Isn't that rank? It's so 

Adam Cox: rank. Is that why they were like, Oh, nice and nutty. So I'm guessing mass produced chocolate. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah So anything like where there's huge stockpiles And then they kind of put them into parcels send them off to distribution places to kind of get processed within those There's a lot of these little critters. I could tell my nieces this this would definitely put them off chocolate. 

Kyle Risi: The amount that you can eat when you're a kid, like you don't have that problem that you have today when you have like too much chocolate and you feel sick. As a kid, you just keep going. Yeah. 

Adam Cox: But then you don't know about 

Kyle Risi: cockroaches. That's true. That's true. One other thing that I have for you, um, tennis balls.

Kyle Risi: So they used to be black and white, but they got changed to yellow, uh, thanks to David Attenborough of all people. Obviously Devil Attenborough, he is our national treasure. Famous for a bunch of things, primarily being a British, broadcaster and biologist. He's also got a famous brother, Richard Attenborough, who's a British actor.

Kyle Risi: He's the old guy from, uh, Jurassic Park, yeah. So, Sir David Attenborough, as we should be calling him, he suggested that they change the colour of the tennis balls, uh, during his tenure as a controller for BBC2. And at the time, colour televisions were just kind of still a novel kind of invention.

Kyle Risi: So he basically recognized that it was quite challenging to track the white tennis ball against the the green grass at Wimbledon during televised broadcasts of matches. So he proposed that they switch to a more visible color and that's why we have the fluorescent yellow tennis balls.

Kyle Risi: But what's awesome is that this suggestion was only to use yellow balls when They were televising. Right, okay. The match, but isn't it incredible to know like your legacy because of that little suggestion. Now the standard is yellow fuzzy tennis balls. 

Adam Cox: That's crazy. I'm trying to think of a, I've never even seen a white and black tennis ball.

Adam Cox: No, 

Kyle Risi: I don't think so. I haven't seen one. I know in America sometimes they have on the, on the clay courts, they have sometimes blue tennis balls, 

Adam Cox: I've seen them sometimes. Yeah, so I think it shows up, I'm guessing, more or something 

Kyle Risi: like that. Anyway, I've got one more thing. Okay. Just a bit of perspective for anyone out there. 

Kyle Risi: So, um, a bottle of water will cost you 50 pence at a supermarket. It'll cost you two dollars at the gym. Yeah. Or two pounds at the gym. Three pounds at the movie theater. And maybe six pounds on an airplane, probably. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, or like some expensive club, 

Kyle Risi: I imagine. The water. In that bottle is the same water and nothing has changed. The only thing that's changed is the location. So next time you're feeling like you have no self worth, maybe it's time you change the location. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, okay, isn't that sweet? Yeah. 

Adam Cox: And branding and marketing that comes into it. Like, do you remember when smart water came out? I remember Jennifer Anderson. Was advertising it. Yes. I remember she was like, oh, this is a smart way of thinking But because it was filled with some kind of mineral that made you smart. Sure There was a very very loose connection, but I always remember that advertising campaign.

Kyle Risi: I just can't help feel that you've missed the point 

Adam Cox: Um, no, I get the point.

Adam Cox: I'm just saying like, there's, okay, yeah, 

Kyle Risi: fine. So if you're feeling blue, and you're not feeling satisfied in your job, just maybe, change location. Find a place where you feel that you are gaining your worth, Yeah, and get a different bottle of water. Um, that's all my latest things for this week. Should we get on with the story? Let's do it.

Kyle Risi: So Adam, it is August 1980 and a completely typical middle class family of five have embarked on a road trip to Urulu. You probably recognize that as Ayers Rock. Do you know the big old kind of giant mountain that juts out in the very center of kind of Australia? Yes. I think the kind of, the more native name for it or the aboriginal name is Uluru.

Kyle Risi: So they're on a camping holiday and Michael and Lindy, they're both in the mid 30s with, uh, with their kids. Two lively boys age seven and four and a two month baby daughter called Azaria. and they are happy and enjoying their time together as a family celebrating their brand new baby.

Kyle Risi: And this is important because later Lindy will be accused of having postnatal depression but according to the fact that they were on holiday, it's a pretty solid hint that this was not the case. They're having a blast and they're just having a real happy time.

Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm, . So let's jump now to the 17th of August. Michael's got a bit of an, Michael's got this adventurous spirits and he climbs up airs, rock or Uluru, and he goes off to take some photos in a nearby cave. And meanwhile, Lindy and the kids are just chilling at the base of the rock, when Lindy looks up and she spots a dingo. Do you know what a dingo is? 

Adam Cox: It's like, I think it's like a dog of some 

Kyle Risi: kind. It's exactly right, yeah. So it's an Australian dog. It's kind of like the, the top dog in the kind of Aussie animal kingdom.

Kyle Risi: They're native to Australia, which they were introduced round about 5,000 years ago. But they're pretty much the apex predator in Australia. So nothing eats them, and they will essentially just eat anything. They will scavenge kind of dead animals. They'll eat bugs, they'll eat anything. They'll eat a spider. 

Adam Cox: So they're like, they, I'm guessing they're bit like wolves, right? But the dogs, but 

Kyle Risi: yeah. Yeah. They're part of the canine family. Yeah. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So Lindy notices the dingo is laser focused on her and her baby and it's not just a passing glance. This dingo is fixated. It's not really interested in anything else. And at the time, the general vibe about dingoes was that they weren't really a threat to humans so it didn't really concern her or any of the other holiday makers. 

Kyle Risi: Lindy just casually pointed out to some other tourists, and she's like, Hey, look, like someone's watching us.

Kyle Risi: So that night, Lindy and Michael were mingling with some of the other campers that they had become friendly with around the communal barbecue.

Kyle Risi: where Lindy decides to go ahead and tuck the two youngest kids into bed in a nearby tent. Aiden is the eldest and he tags along to help her out. So after ensuring that Regan and Azaria were all snug and settled, Lindy and Aiden head back to the barbecue and the zipper on the tent, by the way, that's broken.

Kyle Risi: So she leaves the tent undone but this isn't really a big deal because they're only gathered just a few yards away so she can keep a kind of a close eye on the tent to make sure that no one goes in. So it's not something that she's really concerned about at all. But just a few minutes after rejoining the group, Lindsay hears a short sharp scream coming from Zaria and she instinctively turns towards the tent and she sees a dingo is sneaking out of the tent with something clenched in its jaws.

Kyle Risi: So she actually 

Adam Cox: sees the dingo. Yeah, she does. So I never knew. Yeah, well I know we'll probably get to it, but I never realised she actually saw the dingo. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, she saw the dingo, and when it sees Lindy, like, it just scampers away. Now, Lindy in a panic, she rushes over to the tent, and to her horror, she sees that Azaria's basket is empty, and the blankets are a mess, and there is blood inside and outside and all around the tent.

Kyle Risi: And Regan, her son, He's just motionless on the ground and it turns out that the dingo had stepped over him to get to Azaria and Regan was just so petrified that the dingo would come back that he just played dead. So, and how old is Regan then? So, oh god, he must be like three. Three, okay. Yeah, so he's small and he's smart. If you can't fight back, just play 

Adam Cox: dead. Play dead, yeah, good on him. 

Kyle Risi: So, Lindy bolts from the tent screaming those famous words, Has anyone got a torch? A dingo's got my baby. And she races in the direction that she sees the dingo flee, and the barbecue crowd they just spring into action. A few men following Lindy and Michael is frantically rallying the campsite for torches. And before you know it, a search party has kind of formed and 150 people are pretty much frantically helping search the freezing cold desert to wherever that dingo had taken Nazaria.

Adam Cox: So when the dingo was running away, Lindy didn't see anything in its mouth?

Kyle Risi: I think she put two and two together. Maybe she didn't quite clearly see it, but I think when she went to the tent, she saw the blood, she saw the baby was gone, she knew.

Kyle Risi: The dingo took a baby. 

Adam Cox: Sure. Because you think if there was blood in the tent There's gonna be a blood trail wherever this 

Kyle Risi: is. Oh, well, yeah So in the search party There are several kind of skilled indigenous trackers from like another nearby camp and they pick up on the dingoes tracks following it by Torchlight and they can see periodically that it had stopped and placed Azaria down to kind of readjust its hold on it Really before then going off again and the trail is tracked as far as possible but then it just vanishes when it's apparent that the dingo were taken to the road.

Kyle Risi: But Lindy and Michael sensed that they'd lost their nine week old daughter and that Azaria was just gone. They just almost accepted it immediately. Obviously, they're devastated. Yeah, it's 

Adam Cox: like well odds are right like that's a wild 

Kyle Risi: animal. It's a dog. It's a wolf It's so sad so by the next day the incident had grabbed headlines worldwide and It was just such a captivating story here You have this exotic location a young attractive mother where a dramatic almost unbelievable incident has occurred and every news outlet was scrambling to For interviews with Lindy and Michael.

Kyle Risi: So a Melbourne newspaper convinced Michael to photograph the blood soak tent where Azara was sleeping, and the media's primary goal was clear, they wanted to secure exclusive content. So they send film crews out in helicopters to circle the area .

Kyle Risi: And yeah, they just report on this story for days and days and days, like really milking it. So in the first public interview, Lindy and Michael appeared remarkably composed, almost matter of fact about what happened, which is the main catalyst that starts sparking speculation as to what might have happened that night, because people began to question how in less than a day they could have Just come across as seeming like they've accepted that Azaria had died without kind of any visible Emotion or turmoil 

Adam Cox: But wasn't this the same sort of criticism that was applied to Madeline McCann's family, which we've just covered It's the same kind of thing where people are expecting or why are you acting like this?

Kyle Risi: It's the same old situation. there's just no manual for parents on how to deal with the situation when your kid is killed or taken or yeah do you know what i mean and i think 

Adam Cox: also when you're supposed to be doing a press coverage or whatever it might be you're going to be putting on a certain act regardless of whether you're upset, you're happy, you're promoting something, you're presenting something to the world that isn't maybe not 100 percent you.

Kyle Risi: That's it, that's correct, yeah. So the public was particularly puzzled by how they spoke about Azaria. They often refer to their faith as seven day Adventists, which is a religion that was not widely understood in Australia at the time. And the faith believes that when you die, your spirit just goes to sleep until Judgment Day.

Kyle Risi: So they were just candidly speaking about how Azaria was sleeping and that they would meet her again in the next life. And so in a country where most Australians were predominantly Catholic, this struck them as unusual and possibly even a bit suspicious. So journalists seizing the opportunity, they persuaded the couple to share their story more broadly, and again, this might also explain why they came across the way that they did in front of the cameras.

Kyle Risi: Because they were just emphasizing that there was a need to raise awareness about the dangers of dingo saying that they had a duty to ensure that this never happened again. Sure. 

Kyle Risi: But the more Lindy and Michael spoke publicly, at the insistence of the media, the more the couple's every move and every word came under increased scrutiny.

Kyle Risi: But given Michael's background in journalism and his experience hosting a radio show for kind of six years, he and Lindy often appeared like as guests to discuss their religion, so they felt like they would be able to handle the media. 

Kyle Risi: But what they didn't anticipate was that this family's tragedy was going to be used by the media to, again, Spin their own narrative, essentially, as we've seen with Madeline McCann, as we've seen with, JonBenet Ramsey, as we've also seen with, what was the other chick?

Kyle Risi: Amanda Knox. Amanda Knox. Exactly. It's just time and time again, isn't it? That the media just uses these stories to their own advantage just to sell more newspapers. For sure. 

Kyle Risi: So a week after Azaria's disappearance, her clothes were found in the desert, and as expected they were covered in blood, they were torn, and they were just caked in dirt.

Kyle Risi: It's not looking good, is it? No. So the person who found the clothing was another tourist by the name of Wally Goodwin, and he had found the clothes near a dingo lair. What he had found was her little jumpsuit, her booties, her nappy, and like her little singlet that she was wearing, which is basically like just a vest.

Kyle Risi: However, what was missing was the matinee jacket that Azari had been wearing, which is a detail that would later play a very important part in this case, because that's missing. So Wally was smart, right? He realised, what he had found, he didn't touch the clothing, instead he just contacted the police straight away.

Kyle Risi: One thing he says regrettably is that he didn't take a photograph of how he found the glows because when the police arrive at the discovery site, an officer on duty stupidly picks up the clothes before examining them, and then he places them back down on the ground giving the impression that they'd been neatly placed there, almost intentionally arranged. 

Kyle Risi: So they take a bunch of photographs and it's these pictures that are circulated to the world's media, so a coroner's inquest begins and they conclude that it was in fact a dingo that was responsible and that Lindy was telling the truth. However, across the country, People were just sceptical. Many just couldn't wrap their heads around this idea that a dingo had attacked a child because it had never been reported before in Australian history pretty much.

Kyle Risi: So 

Adam Cox: the police were quite confident at that time based on the evidence that was They found and given that actually it wasn't anything to do with Lindy. It was well, 

Kyle Risi: I mean they weren't arrested. We're arrested So I imagine if they suspected it was them then they probably would arrest them and there was a big search party there I think all the affordances were there like the fact that a search was going on they were frantic etc I think this was very much the media that had painted this picture of guilt against them And that's when things started to turn.

Adam Cox: Okay. Yeah, What you've said so far is that you have these indigenous people who are able to track that and were able to tell when, you know, um, the baby was placed down and all the blood spots. And then you've got a guy here who said, Oh, I should have taken a photo, but there's policemen picked it up.

Adam Cox: Yeah. All these things, there's logical evidence to support, like, don't listen to the media. 

Kyle Risi: It gets so much worse. It's not just the media that are playing a part in this. It goes all the way to the top. Okay. Which we're going to find out a bit more about that in a minute. So, like I said, many couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of a dingo attack because it'd never been reported before. However, the indigenous community, they were well aware of the potential dangers that dingoes did pose, especially to children.

Kyle Risi: But what the public at the time didn't realize was that there were already 30 to 40 dingoes lurking around the campsite that night and they were all desperate for food. 

Kyle Risi: Because the country Was in the middle of a drought and so this was having a major impact on the dingoes like normal food supply Resulting in the dingoes becoming just more and more desperate staying closer than usual to humans for any opportunity to Just scavenge any kind of disregarded scraps of food, right?

Kyle Risi: And also just six weeks before Azaria's disappearance A little girl visiting from Victoria was dragged out of a car by a dingo and after this attack the only measure that was taken was to put up signs warning people not to feed the dingoes. But this only made the problem worse because now the only reliable food source that the dingoes had was now been completely cut off and this just caused them to become even more desperate and even more mean, yeah, 

Adam Cox: they've got they're going to take the opportunity or their chances and potentially be more aggressive in order to get that food. For sure. And 

Kyle Risi: I mean, if dingoes haven't really posed a major risk in the past, even though there obviously is some evidence of it, it's because maybe they only do that as a last resort, 

Kyle Risi: So the situation had gotten so bad that the park ranger recommended a dingo call saying That they were posing a significant threat to tourist safety in the area but this suggestion was outright rejected by the Northern Territory government and just two weeks later Azaria would vanish 

Kyle Risi: So this refusal to acknowledge the increasing threat that dingoes pose led to speculation that authorities were more concerned about the potential tourism rather than the public safety, and they feared news of a dingo attack might deter visitors planning a trip to the Northern Territory.

Kyle Risi: So when Azaria did go missing, they actively downplayed the dangers in fear that They would get into trouble for ignoring many of the warning signs that people were giving them. Really? That's terrible. Oh, it gets so much worse. Just, oh, 

Adam Cox: we want to keep the money coming in. Which, yes, I understand you've got business, but Oh, wow.

Kyle Risi: Well, people even speculated that the government of the Northern Territories had actively sought out experts, citing that dingoes pose very little risk to people. and weirdly, the story of that little girl from Victoria being attacked. That story, just a few weeks later, completely disappeared from the records.

Kyle Risi: So there's a lot of evidence to suggest that there was a bit of a cover up here.

Kyle Risi: And so for this reason the public just became more and more suspicious. They couldn't understand why Azaria's body hadn't been found in any of the stomachs of the dingoes that they did kill. And questions also arose as to why the Chamberlains decided to leave Uluru just a few days after Azaria's disappearance.

Adam Cox: So they were going around killing dingoes and then inspecting their stomachs? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess maybe that's when the dingo cult started and then maybe they were just checking for any remnants of their daughter. I mean that's pretty horrific. I mean it happens sometimes if there's like a crocodile attack, sometimes they'll go and kill a bunch of crocodiles and see if there's anything in their bellies.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean it makes sense but how likely is that? Because surely that would pass through your system but then are they looking for like DNA evidence 

Kyle Risi: or? It depends how much time has passed, right? Yeah, okay. 

Kyle Risi: So one particular rumour claimed that the name Azaria meant sacrifice to the wilderness but in reality it just meant blessed by God but this didn't stop those rumours concocting a story actually been killed by her parents in a ritualistic sacrifice. That is gross. It's so horrible and again it's important to remember As we have seen time and time again, the media had the power to choose what to publish and what not to publish. And so they run with the narrative that suits their agenda.

Kyle Risi: For instance, the media latch onto how Lindy was portrayed in interviews. Lindy was doing an interview about the dangers that dingoes pose to humans, she is dingoes eat their prey.

Kyle Risi: Where she says how they will kind of use their paws to kind of pull back the skin while eating an animal. What is noticed is how unemotional she is when she's talking through this process. it's a gruesome thing to Be describing, 

Adam Cox: right? Yeah, I was thinking like if you knew that that might have happened to your child Whatever, would you want to know about all the details and stuff like that?

Kyle Risi: You've got to remember as well that the media stressed the importance of them Drawing awareness to dingo attacks in the hope that this never happened again, right? So that's the context for why these conversations are happening, right? 

Kyle Risi: But what people don't know is that this little snippet where she's talking about how the dingoes eat their prey , this is the seventh take that she had to do.

Kyle Risi: Because the first six takes, she had broken down in tears every single time and the producers were just coaching her saying, you need to just be emotionless because it's important that people understand the clear dangers that these dingoes pose to the public. Oh, and I can't believe they used this against her.

Kyle Risi: They did. Isn't that crazy? so when the public sees this final emotionless cut, more rumours just circulate. And at the centre of all of this was the fact that the Chamberlains were Seventh Day Adventists, which is a religion that most Australians just didn't know about at the time.

Kyle Risi: And remember, just two years before this had happened, the Jonestown Massacre had happened. So people were really fearful of cults at the time because they knew kind of very little about the Seventh Day Adventists, so they just assumed. 

Adam Cox: I was just going to say, did they think it was some weird cult? So yeah, I imagine that's the thing.

Adam Cox: Anything that doesn't, I don't know, it's not Christianity, it's not Judaism or whatever. People are like, oh, that's not one of the main religions. I don't trust that. Yeah, we should be fearful. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So amidst all the rumours linking their daughter's death to the Chamberlain's religious beliefs, people speculated that Michael, who was a pastor, in the Seventh day Adventist Church, had sacrificed Azaria in a bizarre ritual to absolve the sins of his congregation.

Kyle Risi: And this was also further compounded by the theory that Lindy was suffering from postnatal depression, and that she had been abusing Azaria. And then rumours even suggested that Azaria had been hospitalised just one week before they went on holiday, and that the Chamberlains intended to dispose of Azaria because she supposedly had cerebral palsy.

Kyle Risi: Of course, none of this was true.

Adam Cox: Who was making this up? This is wild.

Kyle Risi: The thing is, though, it's difficult to know where this stuff has come from. But it's obviously been recirculated by the media for it to have such a wide kind of reach.

Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And this 

Adam Cox: religion, is it? I'm assuming, is it pretty normal? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's just a regular, it's a denomination of Christianity. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. So no sacrificial rituals or anything like that. Nothing. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my word. Nothing. Lindy herself said that a lie can go around the world in the time that it takes the truth to tie its shoelaces. What a brilliant line. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: And people believe Azariah's disappearance in some capacity. Lindy and Michael began, like, receiving death threats as a result from just random strangers on the street. They were even spat on when they were in public as well. And it got to the point where they were forced to hire a bodyguard just for protection for wherever, anywhere they went.

Adam Cox: That is horrendous. 

Kyle Risi: So the only recourse that they had to defend themselves was to just go back to the media once again. They hoped to dispel some of the rumours that were circulating, but this often just backfired.

Kyle Risi: Again, each time Lindy was in front of those cameras, she was just perceived as cold and emotionless. When in fact, This is probably just her attempt at just trying to maintain kind of composure and privacy in the face of kind of this overwhelming public scrutiny.

Adam Cox: Yeah, and what about I mean, it frustrates me a little bit that none of the producers where she did break down in this interview. I feel like if I was part of that production, I would want to speak out and go, Hey, no, actually. This is what happened, we were just trying to do this, like we're not going to release her breaking down or anything, but this is actually what happened.

Adam Cox: And it just feels like, why did no one come to her, well perhaps there were, because obviously it's a while ago. 

Kyle Risi: Well someone does, I mean, they will do an inquest, and the guys who do the inquest, they really sympathise with her. And they really try to put an end to what they're going through. So there are some good guys in this, but again, the media always has a way of making it backfire, or spinning it.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. For their own kind of agenda. Sure. what we saw with Madeleine McCann, when we had that situation where they had the sniffer dogs and they found that maybe there must have been a decomposing body in the rental, but the reality was that the, that vehicle was hired 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.

Kyle Risi: So they spun it to say, Oh, okay, fine. They hired the vehicle 25 days after she disappeared. But what they did is they stored the body somewhere and then transported it in that vehicle. So they're just going to kind of swing it. Exactly. They always do. So the growing public distrust towards the Chamberlains was further fuelled by the forensic details from the investigation, which was often leaked by the police.

Kyle Risi: For instance, there was a report that no dingo saliva had been found on Azaria's clothes, and experts claimed that the hairs that were on the clothing were not from a dingo, that they were instead cat hairs. And another expert also claimed that the cuts on Azaria's jumpsuit were not made by animal teeth, they were clearly made using a blade.

Kyle Risi: How would? Okay. What? I don't know, it's mental. So these little kind of like little tidbits that have been released, just kind of people run with it and they use that to pin guilt on them, which is just tragic. Surely 

Adam Cox: there must have been saliva on those clothes 

Kyle Risi: though.

Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, this is when the news comes out that she was wearing a matinee jacket, which is missing. So the saliva from the dingo is probably on that matinee jacket, and that's what they should be checking. But they're like, well, well, there's no matinee jacket. So yeah, nice story, Lindy.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So she's like, well, what do I do?

Kyle Risi: And so the culmination of all this circumstantial evidence and the public perception increasingly paint Lindy and Michael as the prime suspects. This situation wasn't just confined to public opinion, it also extended into the political realm, reaching literally, as I said earlier on, the top. 

Adam Cox: So what, the Australian government?

Kyle Risi: Right up to the Australian government. so to provide some context, it's important to point out that the Northern Territory of Australia, which is its own state now, right? So to provide some context, it's important to point out that the Northern Territory of Australia at the time had only gained self governance two years before Azaria had been taken, and previously it was governed under the administration of Canberra.

Kyle Risi: So in light of Azaria Chamberlain's case, This brought into question whether or not the Northern Territories was even fit to govern itself in the first place. 

Kyle Risi: So consequently, there is a interest in shifting that narrative away from the failure of the Northern Territories to Lindy and Michael and that narrative is that they murdered their own daughter.

Kyle Risi: Essentially the Chamberlains were just being used as the ideal scapegoat, basically. Yeah, 

Adam Cox: that's, yeah, poor couple. 

Kyle Risi: So now the Australian public, they're divided. More than 70 percent of Australians believe that Lindy was guilty. That's a huge amount. That's huge, yeah. So amidst the biggest story of this generation, an inquest is initiated into what happened that night.

Kyle Risi: And it doesn't take the coroner, Dennis Barrett Long, to declare that the Chamberlains were and are unequivocally innocent. 

Adam Cox: Okay, so another instance of people going, I don't know why we're still covering this topic. Exactly. 

Kyle Risi: These guys are innocent. There's nothing to see here. But when the time comes to release his findings, he is adamant.

Kyle Risi: That he wants to do this live on television, and this had never been done before, like no court findings had ever been broadcast in this way. And the reason for this was that Dennis wanted to ensure that it was clear that Lindy and Michael were completely innocent of any involvement.

Kyle Risi: And the only way that he saw that this was possible was that if he talked through the findings in that report, leaving no room for interpretation by the media or by the public. And 

Adam Cox: Can't be edited or manipulated in any way. This is the truth. I'm guessing that it didn't go to plan. Foreshadowing!

Adam Cox: Yeah, and somehow someone took his, I'm guessing it either didn't come across very well, or someone took his words out of context. 

Kyle Risi: Well, he makes a very big mistake and I'll get onto that in a second. So in his announcement, the coroner launches a scathing critique against the different departments that were involved in the investigation.

Kyle Risi: So his criticism was particularly harsh towards the Northern Territory Police and the Parks Department, pointing out their failure to act on the known threat that dingoes posed in the area.

Kyle Risi: He also highlighted the initial examination, and emphasized the lack of experience from those people that were leading the investigation for example He points out the inexperience of the lead forensic investigator who was a young female constable only been on the job for three months 

Kyle Risi: so she only had three months experience and she was working without any supervision that night as well So even she herself admitted like later on that she had no idea what she was doing Well, that's got a failure of confidence so He also completely slammed the decision not to examine the tent. which allowed investigators to avoid submitting evidence of blood found in and around the tent, which would have directly supported the theory of a dingo attack.

Kyle Risi: As a result, it was Michael and Lindy's word against theirs, that the tent was covered in blood. so 

Adam Cox: no one took photos or anything?

Kyle Risi: They did take photos, but they weren't 

Adam Cox: Like DNA tested or anything? Because you'd have thought there's definitely gonna be some fur. Saliva in that tent from the dingo. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my god he also criticized the media for their role and of course spreading rumors and Sensationalizing kind of the tragedy just to sell more newspapers and Dennis's intention was to put just an end to the rampant Speculation and misinformation that have plagued this case up to this point but in him trying to do this this inadvertently had the opposite effect which made some people very determined to go off and prove him wrong. 

Kyle Risi: Because in his statement's final paragraph he affirmed that it was his belief that a dingo had taken and killed Azaria But that later Azaria's body and clothes had been found and then moved by a person or person's unknown.

Kyle Risi: And he based this last line on the fact that the photograph of the clothes had made it look like the clothes were neatly placed on the ground by another human being. 

Adam Cox: Right, okay. So he's saying this bit happened, but everyone's going, jumping conclusions, going, well, that was them then and it was a cover up. So Yeah, but I think just to say that like the body was moved or something like that sounds like that does sound wording Uh, that goes against everything that he's been saying. Sure, but he's 

Kyle Risi: basing that, remember, just on the photograph. Mm hmm.

Kyle Risi: Because he was like, well, we found the clothes, but they're just neatly laid on the ground. So that says to me that someone had found her body, moved it, taken her clothes off, or I don't know, done something with it. So it looked very processed.

Kyle Risi: But we know was actually the policeman who had done that, but he never came forward to admit that because of course he had made a mistake. And Wally Goodwin, the tourist who initially discovered the clothes, wasn't invited to testify. Hence he says he regrets not taking his own photographs of the clothes in the way that he found them.

Kyle Risi: So following this live televised statement, All the people, including the forensic experts and also the government departments that were all involved, did not take this well. And so they collectively became determined that they were going to prove Dennis Barrett's findings were actually incorrect. 

Kyle Risi: So the authorities reopened the investigation with the aim of identifying the person or persons unknown who had moved Azaria's clothing.

Kyle Risi: Right. But that unfortunately was just a facade because in reality They were re examining every single bit of evidence that they had through a different lens. A lens with an agenda.

Kyle Risi: So the Northern Territory Police, they spend the next seven months amassing evidence Against the Chamberlain's and when they felt they had enough evidence They raid the Chamberlain's home where they find, get this, a child's coffin And a black dress, which they dubbed as proof that the Chamberlains were actually guilty.

Kyle Risi: In truth, the black dress was just a hand me down from Reagan to Azaria, which Lindy had made herself. So she's not exactly going to get rid of that, it's something that she's handmade, right? Right. as for the coffin, it wasn't in preparation for Azaria's funeral.

Kyle Risi: It was actually a prop that Michael used in an anti smoking ceremony. where he would get the congregation members to symbolically discard their cigarette packs inside the coffin. 

Adam Cox: Wow, I mean that is an unfortunate set of coincidences.

Adam Cox: It is. To have that. I mean the dress you can pass away, but a coffin, that does look weird. I mean it's just a black dress, right? Yeah, but a coffin, oh dear. I mean it can be explained. But yeah. Yeah. bit suss doesn't justify it though, right? No, it looks strange, still in the context of everything, they're still 

Kyle Risi: innocent.

Kyle Risi: The investigators also called in every eyewitness at the campsite on the night that Azaria disappeared, and they were all interrogated for hours and hours until they were exhausted and then forced into signing statements that just further incriminated the Chamberlains. 

Kyle Risi: And we know most of this because it was later revealed that investigators were recording all of their conversations, even amongst themselves, which made it clear that they were deliberately looking to build a case against the Chamberlains. And every time they found anything that made them look guilty, you would hear how they would be just elated. And there's loads of footage out there where you can actually hear these recordings it's so clear that they're building a case against them.

Kyle Risi: And the authorities They just continue to manipulate public opinion by strategically leaking anything They incriminated the Chamberlain's to the press one particularly egregious leak suggests that Lindy was attempting to float with the detectives to try and secure a lighter sentence. 

Kyle Risi: So when they felt they had enough evidence they presented all of this to the Northern Territory Police Commissioner, and two months later the second inquest went ahead, which quashed all findings from the first. By the way, this second inquest, is actually the second of four that will happen in this case.

Adam Cox: So the first one proves that they're innocent, the second one proves that they're guilty. Interesting. I'm guessing the next one's gonna be guilty. 

Kyle Risi: Well we'll have to see. So the second inquest found that Azaria had been murdered and that the Chamberlains were to blame and now they had to stand trial.

Kyle Risi: That's awful. So on September of 1982 the trial began in Darwin which everyone called the trial of the century and it was scheduled for September specifically because one of the forensic experts was coming from London and he said he would only come if he could come at the same time that the cricket was on.

Kyle Risi: And because he was obviously a very important witness to the prosecution they arranged for the trial to take place in September. 

Adam Cox: Yeah sounds like he's got an ulterior motive but fine if he wants to just come for the cricket and while I'm in town sure I'll give some evidence. 

Kyle Risi: By the way it didn't matter that at this point Lindy was more than seven months pregnant.

Kyle Risi: Oh right. And it was September, she was hot, she was bothered, she was all like eager to get rid of this baby that was in, well that's bad choice words, like eager to get the baby out of her. And yeah, so when the trial began public sentiment swung further and further away in favor of Lindy Because of the fact that every day at trial she just seemed aloof and fed up because of course she's seven months pregnant Yeah, she's like 

Adam Cox: I don't want to be doing this

Kyle Risi: But also because she wore a different outfit every day. I mean, come on. You're of course going to wear a different outfit every day, right? Oh, thanks. You're not going to wear the same thing every day.

Adam Cox: Yeah, and is it, how long did it 

Kyle Risi: last for then? Oh, quite a, like, six weeks or so. Six, oh, so 

Adam Cox: she had, well, like, how many outfits is that? The 

Kyle Risi: thing is that the outfits don't matter. they just seem to be looking for any excuse to criticize her. And they were suggesting that she was more preoccupied with the way that she looked rather than coming across innocent.

Kyle Risi: and on top of that, her defence team advised her not to smile under any circumstances. Telling her that would be the worst thing that she could do. Which again, the media grabbed hold of, and that birthed the famous headline that stated that she was a hard faced murdering bitch.

Kyle Risi: But 

Adam Cox: hang on, who is going to be smiling in court, whether you're, if you're like on the defense and being prosecuted, 

Kyle Risi: who's going to be smiling? I think you're thinking of it as in general, right? Is she constantly smiling 90 percent of the time that's never going to be the case, but there's always going to be small moments where you're interacting with people, where you might crack a smile, and she just Being told like don't do that.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. I can understand that though. Yeah. Oh, I can totally understand it But again, it just highlights that point that the media will just find anything that they can To kind of swing the narrative because if she was smiling she'd be painted in one way the fact that she's not smiling She's painted in Emotionless and hard and cold and if she was smiling she'd be painted as well unremorseful.

Adam Cox: The reason I said about the outfits is if it's gone on for six weeks, of course you're gonna have multiple outfits during that period. 

Kyle Risi: The thing is though, she also made a lot of her outfits as well. So it wasn't a case that people, Ooh, she looks very fancy. They actually didn't like her outfits because she was making them.

Kyle Risi: So she was criticized for that. Oh, so she 

Adam Cox: making, Oh, cause she's pregnant. So if she needs different, bigger clothes and stuff, right? I guess 

Kyle Risi: I guess it's quite common back then for people to make their own clothes. She made some of Azaria's clothes, like that little dress that she made that belongs to Reagan, that was something that she had made.

Kyle Risi: So when it came to the prosecution's case, this is what they claimed. They claimed that Lindy had walked away from the barbecue area with Aiden with the plan to kill Azaria in the family's car, which by the way was only parked like literally a couple meters from where the barbecue area was where all the other campers were gathered, right?

Kyle Risi: So how she was going to do that, I don't know. They then claimed that Lindy had gone to the tent, she had changed Aria's clothes, then taken her from the tent to the car's passenger seat, where she then used a pair of nail scissors to slit Azaria's throat and then potentially Try and decapitate her. 

Kyle Risi: Azaria's blood. Then supposedly slutted all over the interior of the car where she then bled out and that accomplished Lindsay's mission to kill Azaria. Lindy then had a lot to clean up all her own, which she apparently did extremely diligently in the night, only missing a small amount of spray underneath the dashboard of the car.

Kyle Risi: And she apparently did this all within a 16 minute time window, which was presented as being completely possible, and also told in a very compelling way to the jury, which they bought, they believed 

Adam Cox: it. I'm sorry, No, that just doesn't make sense.

Adam Cox: I can't believe they bought that because I know this is not really on topic But if you get your car valeted, there's usually about three or four guys that are cleaning your car That takes 10 to 15 minutes and fair enough to do the outside as well. But To clean it that thoroughly with one person. Yeah, just missing one little mark. No, no, come on. Where is the logic here? 

Kyle Risi: There is no logic and the thing is that the jury didn't really know what was being told to them, right? It was being told in a very kind of technical kind of showmanship y convincing way So then a lot of time they didn't even know what they were hearing. 

Kyle Risi: So they said once Lindy finished the clean up she then put Azaria's body in Michael's camera bag and then went back to the barbecue area acting totally normal until she felt like enough time had passed for her to begin her performance of the Dingo Got My Baby. Yeah. Then while they were searching in the desert, Michael apparently buried Azaria's body somewhere in the desert.

Kyle Risi: Right. So. This theory is all backed up by the so called evidence that came from a woman called Joy Kuhl who said that the test that she conducted on the interior of the car found 22 positive tests for something they call fetal haemoglobin which is something that apparently all babies have until they're around about six months old.

Kyle Risi: Of course they took no testimony from the indigenous trackers who all knew very well that Lindy was innocent because they'd all seen with their own eyes the dingo tracks.

Kyle Risi: Also the park ranger that advised that they carry out a dingo call, he was actually coached on how to avoid presenting certain facts.

Kyle Risi: They didn't question Regan who would have been able to tell them that a dingo walked on him in that tent that night And they didn't question Aiden who would have been able to tell them that he was with his mother the entire time. And they completely dismissed all the testimonies From all of the campers that were there that night.

Adam Cox: So they're limiting one of the witnesses to just a yes and no answers, they can't expand on that, is that 

Kyle Risi: even possible? I guess so. 

Adam Cox: That doesn't, well that obviously is not right. And then they didn't take into account, I guess maybe you'd not take into, surely you would take into account a child's recollection.

Adam Cox: Or, version of events that evening, when they're that close to what happened. I don't know, 

Kyle Risi: it's just, I don't, I can't explain it. I'm like, I'm not a defense lawyer, I'm not a prosecution lawyer, I don't know. I don't know what's allowed and what's not, really. But it's just outrageous. I mean, they do offer Lindy a plea deal.

Kyle Risi: They say that if she pleads guilty to admitting to slitting her daughter's throat, then they would let her go and they would use the defense that she was suffering from postnatal depression. They 

Adam Cox: would let her go? No, they 

Kyle Risi: wouldn't. Well, that's what they're saying. Well, this plea Really? But thankfully, she doesn't accept the plea deal and they continue with the trial, which lasts a total of five weeks.

Kyle Risi: And the jury are completely overwhelmed by the evidence that's presented to them. And they don't really understand much of what's been said. And they often mention that They relied on the media reports about the case to explain to them what they were hearing in the court. Because most of Australia felt that the Chamberlains were guilty, and this was the angle that the media were peddling, the jury just felt that they had to come back with a guilty verdict.

Adam Cox: Wow. Because they're being told this is what's happened, and I guess for their perspective, they can't go like, Yeah. We'd look stupid if we go against this.

Kyle Risi: Exactly, and this is why this is such a miscarriage of justice. It's crazy. So after only six hours of deliberation, the jury find Lindy guilty of murdering Azaria, and Michael is deemed an accessory to her murder.

Kyle Risi: Lindy is sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor and no possibility of parole and she's just taken directly to prison from the courthouse right there and then.

Kyle Risi: And what about Michael? Well, Michael got a suspended three year sentence, which he didn't need to serve largely because the judge said that, like, the children needed at least one parent. 

Adam Cox: But that doesn't make sense because if the dad is supposedly an accomplice and a danger to children. Why would they even allow him to continue parenting his children? 

Kyle Risi: I don't know. None of this makes any sense to me. it's just bonkers. So just one month later, while in prison, Lindy gives birth to a daughter, Carlya. And she was only allowed to hold Carlya for just one hour before she was taken and placed into foster care. And Michael was not even allowed to be at her birth, which is heartbreaking. 

Kyle Risi: Initially, Lindy was told that she couldn't see Kalia for the first year of her birth because she was potentially a threat to her, but then I guess that's what you said as well, like, why was Michael allowed to be a parent to his other kids if he posed a danger?

Kyle Risi: But I guess maybe in this example, or in this case that they're only thinking that They pose a risk to infant children. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and it might be because of the angle of well, you're seven days seventh day adventists Maybe you're into child sacrifice. So we want to keep any infant kids away from you. maybe that could be it.

Adam Cox: Yeah It's still bizarre. But yeah, okay. This is what played out 

Kyle Risi: at the time

Kyle Risi: But Michael fought relentlessly against that decision and eventually Lindy was granted bail so that she could nurse Carlya until she was just five months old. But once Carlya was stable enough, Lindy was just sent back to jail. 

Kyle Risi: So Michael filed appeal after appeal, only to see them all overturned due to technicalities.

Kyle Risi: And the Crown was just adamant that they were going to uphold the jury's, like, verdicts. But the thing is though, it's so clear now that they were completely led by the media. They felt pressured. To give a guilty verdict, so I can't understand why that's not seen by the Crown. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, it feels quite easy to say this all in hindsight and with history and obviously what's happened with other, cases that we've talked about and covered on the show.

Adam Cox: So maybe it's quite easy for us to just pinpoint it, but maybe back then that, Madeleine McCann hadn't happened and all this sort of stuff. So maybe you didn't have that 

Kyle Risi: way to, that precedent or like, Oh, like you, you should maybe reconsider. Cause look what happened in this case or in that 

Adam Cox: case, that level of critical thinking that maybe they just didn't have at that time.

Kyle Risi: It's possible. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So when any new evidence emerged that challenged any of the original findings, for instance, the supposed blood spray under the dashboard, well, that turned out to not be fetal haemoglobin at all. It was actually soundproofing substances that are used during the kind of the car's manufacturer. Okay. 

Kyle Risi: The test they were using to test for the substance was actually reacting with copper oxide that was in the area. And not human blood. 

Kyle Risi: But this was rejected on account, because this evidence was theoretically available at the time of the trial, then it should have been presented during the original trial.

Kyle Risi: But the problem with that is that the defence didn't have enough time to react to a lot of the evidence because it had been submitted so late in the preparation for the trial that they didn't have time to go, actually should we just get a second opinion on this, or on that, etc. So yeah, that was just, like, rejected as well.

Kyle Risi: Also a re examination of the hairs that were found on Azaria were actually confirmed to be dingo hairs and not a cat at all. And this too was just dismissed. 

Kyle Risi: Another forensic analysis debunked the theory of the bloody handprint on Azaria's jumpsuit revealing that it was just dirt. And again No change in the verdict came from that as well. 

Kyle Risi: So even the German company that manufactured the blood tests used. In the car when they were testing for the fetal haemoglobin, they communicated to the Northern Territories government that their tests were not suitable for their purpose in that particular area.

Kyle Risi: And again, when that came to light, it was just dismissed as well. So all this new stuff was coming up and they're all saying, well, you had the opportunity to present that evidence at court and you didn't. So you've missed your chance. So no, what they needed was something completely brand new that wasn't available.

Kyle Risi: During the trial and that's the only thing they could do or get that would then proceed the case forward potentially, right? 

Adam Cox: No way that feels like there's a there's enough things to challenge something surely that would open it But they're saying no we need brand new evidence. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Wow Shocking. 

Kyle Risi: Then, late January, 1986, an English tourist who was obsessed with the Chamberlain case was making a pilgrimage to, Uluru, and he climbed the rock and he went into an area that was forbidden for the public to go into.

Kyle Risi: Someone sees him go into that area, so they knew where to look for him when he didn't return a couple days later. Alright. Tragically, they discovered that he'd fallen off the rocks to his death. Oh shit. When they found his body, it wasn't intact because he'd fallen near a dingo's lair and of course the dingoes had got to him. So a search party is sent out to try and locate the rest of his body and what happens next is just unbelievable. 

Kyle Risi: Only one member of that search party was involved in the search for a Zarya. six years prior. Remarkably, that person was the one that found another item of Azaria's clothing that she'd been wearing on that night that she disappeared and that was the matinee jacket. 

Kyle Risi: So immediately he understood the significance of the discovery because the jacket's proximity to a dingo's lair corroborated the theory that a dingo had indeed dragged her away. So do you remember when we were talking about the investigators they were claiming that if a dingo had taken Azaria Then there would be some saliva on the jumpsuit.

Kyle Risi: Yeah on the jumpsuit Well at the time Lindy said that maybe the saliva was on the jacket Azaria was wearing But the investigators were like nice story. Where's the jacket right? This was that jacket, 

Adam Cox: right? wow what a weird turn of events that is the only way that this jacket is found and the fact that it's still in good 

Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, it was buried in, in the sand, so anyone else that had found it probably wouldn't, if they were just ignored it, they wouldn't have understood what they were looking at.

Adam Cox: So

Kyle Risi: until now, there was just no proof that she was wearing a jacket, but this discovery meant that all the evidence could now be reexamined by a more objective party, essentially. In the search party promptly turns the jacket over to the police who take it to the station and they hold it as evidence for four days without notifying anyone.

Kyle Risi: And to this rescue worker, he's a bit suspicious of this and he thinks that they're waiting for instructions from the Northern Territory Government on how to proceed forward next. Right, okay, he contacts a reporter who contacts the Chamberlain's lawyer, Stuart Tipple.

Kyle Risi: and informs them that the jacket has been found and then Stuart, that's the lawyer, organizes a press conference for the very next day demanding that Lindy be allowed to examine and identify that jacket and within two days of Lindy confirming that the jacket was indeed Zaria's, she's just released from jail.

Kyle Risi: Just like that? Just, oh, it gets worse. So it's decided that there won't be another inquiry, alright, Because they know that if there's another independent investigation then the Northern Territory would potentially be found guilty of corruption So they quickly hush it up and they quickly tie things up and they let her free.

Adam Cox: That is terrible Yeah, good for her. She didn't have to wait to be proven innocent. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my god. No test for saliva. Nothing Oh, we found the jacket. Oh, okay. They didn't even test it. Nope. So yeah, and she's also told that she will never need to go back to prison ever again. Good. Isn't that mad? 

Kyle Risi: So if that Taurus hadn't tragically fallen off of that rock and died, then we wouldn't have found that jacket and Lindy Chamberlain would still be in prison today.

Kyle Risi: Also, if anyone else in that search party had found that jacket, they might have just overlooked it completely. They might not have even known what they were looking 

Adam Cox: at. No, they've probably thought, oh, some, I don't know, it's blown in the wind, some kid's lost it, whatever. Wouldn't have ever thought twice about it.

Adam Cox: what a stroke of luck. 

Kyle Risi: Stroke of luck. So, a undertaken to look into how the case was dealt with. Bit like the Leveson Inquiry, right? They're not there to prosecute anyone. They're there to look at what happened objectively and then make some recommendations. So the Commission agrees that Lindy and Michael should be pardoned, which the Northern Territory government do almost immediately.

Kyle Risi: However, pardoning them only removes the consequences of the crime. It doesn't actually acquit Lindy or Michael, which is what they actually wanted, so Lindy and Michael go to the Supreme Court, which then overturns all of the charges and completely acquits them both.

Kyle Risi: But the story is still catching headlines across Australia. Almost every single day, Australians are reading about Lindy. And they still largely believe that they are guilty. 

Kyle Risi: So in 1988, have you heard of the film A Cry In The Dark? No, I don't think I have. So this comes out and it's starring Meryl Streep as Lindy, which is a huge movie star, by the way.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I didn't realise. No way. And basically they're essentially telling Lindy's story. And Lindy thinks this will finally be the thing that convinces people that they are innocent. But people are still divided. They just don't want to be convinced that Lindy is innocent. And at the time, the public sentiment was that Lindy and Michael had actually ended up getting away with something that they shouldn't have.

Kyle Risi: Really? So that's how it shifted. Isn't that crazy? It's just relentless! Yeah. They can't catch a break! So a big part of that It was also that Lindy and Michael were also only doing paid interviews, but what people are forgetting though is that they were heavily in debt from all the legal bills that they had to pay as well.

Kyle Risi: So it was also impossible for Michael to find any work because he was so heavily associated with this story. And also while in prison, Lindy was only earning 30 cents a day for the work that she was doing. I think she was like, just doing some seamstressing. So they were just completely broke, so they have no other option.

Kyle Risi: But the Northern Territory government, they also refused for years to pay any compensation because they pointed out that The Chamberlains were making money from selling their story and so they were getting wealthy from what had already happened to them But eventually they do receive 1. 3 million dollars in compensation, which is around 2. 5 million dollars today But it still just wasn't enough to cover their costs. Yeah I can't 

Adam Cox: believe, yeah, 

Kyle Risi:

Kyle Risi: 1990s. Each of them have since remarried. And in 1995, there was a third inquest. Which once again said that the Chamberlains were completely innocent. But they still refused to declare that Azaria's cause of death was a dingo attack. 

Kyle Risi: And that's all they want at this point. Lindy keeps going and in 2012, during the fourth inquest, finally they have a female coroner that declares that Azaria's death certificate would state that she was attacked and abducted by a wild dingo.

Kyle Risi: Which takes Lindy 32 years to get to this moment. Isn't that crazy? Poor woman! And during that time, there are over 230 dingo attacks on humans that are reported. I just, 

Adam Cox: what an ordeal this poor woman went through. How long was she in 

Kyle Risi: prison for? Oh, like, like five, four, three, four, five years. 

Adam Cox: That is, yeah, what, so much has happened to her and all she wanted was just to be cleared of any wrongdoing of harming her own daughter.

Kyle Risi: I know. It's tragic, isn't it? so in the years following Michael wrote a couple books. Eventually, um, he found a new path as a teacher and his life, however, was constantly marred by the shadow of everything that had happened. Like he was assaulted by two men one day who still believed that he was guilty of Azaria's death.

Kyle Risi: Luckily though, they get sent to prison, but tragically in 2017, Michael died from leukemia. Lindy, despite everything, still gets accused of being involved. She's now a successful public speaker, and she's written a book of her own. Um, it was called Through My Eyes, but they later republished it under A Dingo's Got My Baby.

Kyle Risi: Which, I don't know how I feel about that, which is the reason why I included the dingo in the title of this. Because she's done it, otherwise I wouldn't have done that. Mm hmm. Basically they, they just rebrand the book because it has more kind of recognition to the case. It'll help kind of get in the story out there a bit more. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, people are instantly gonna know it, aren't they? Exactly, yeah.

Kyle Risi: And over the last four decades, Lindy has received over 40, 000 letters from just random strangers, and she apparently has read every single one of them. She recently donated them all to kind of the National Library Archive, turning this entire saga into a part of kind of Australia's National History, which I think is good.

Kyle Risi: So you can actually go and see some of these letters that are on display. Are they sympathetic letters? I'd hope. There's a combination, like she gets a lot of people that still accuse her of being part of the murder but she, at the end of the day, says that she pities them really because she, yeah, they're obviously going through something that they can't let go of and she's already let go of it.

Kyle Risi: So, yeah. So today Azaria would be 43 years old if she's still alive. And I think it's important that at the core of this story that we remember that it's about the death of an innocent life and a family's enduring grief. And I think we need to remember that not as the joke that it had become. Yeah, you hear 

Adam Cox: people say that line, Odinga ate my baby.

Adam Cox: Not really knowing the full context in the ordeal I think this woman went 

Kyle Risi: through. We recently watched an episode of an old rerun of RuPaul's Drag Race where on the Satch game someone did Lindy Chamberlain, and like 

Adam Cox: I remember the contestants were a bit like, Ooh, that's a bit distasteful, I see what 

Kyle Risi: you're doing, but Yeah, even RuPaul was like, we're going to hell.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, 

Adam Cox: I forgot about that, yeah. So yeah, when I think if you just knew it as, Oh, someone got, um, a woman got accused of getting a baby, it was actually a dingo. It's a funny line. You probably wouldn't think much more than that, but because of actually what, the fact that there was so much evidence to show that she was innocent, yet that got thrown out the window. She went to prison 

Kyle Risi: and people, yeah. So it's just a story that's been trivialized for so long, but I think that the public's perception seems to be shifting, whether it's due to increased access to information, or maybe we're just more compassionate than we were back then.

Kyle Risi: I hope it's the latter. And that is the story of Lindy Chamberlain and the death of her daughter Azaria. Wow. Yeah. 

Adam Cox: Well, that's, yeah. There's a lot more to it than I knew. I, I knew, you know, she wa she wasn't guilty, but just the, the, yeah.

Adam Cox: The extremity of it all. Wow. 

Kyle Risi: How awful though. Having your baby taken by a dingo while you're on holiday and to have to prove it's not you. But also at so young, at such a young age as well. It's just horrendous. Yeah. But yeah. So should we run the outro?

Kyle Risi: Sure. 

Kyle Risi: And so we come to the end of another episode of the compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe and leave us a review. Don't just stop there, schedule your episode to download automatically as soon as they become available.

Kyle Risi: We're on Instagram at the Compendium Podcast, so stop by and say hi, or visit us at our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com. We release every Tuesday, and until then, remember, you can be the most powerful government in a nation, you will never, you will still never be a match for a mother's determination and vindication.

Kyle Risi: See you next time. See ya.